I think those are weapons bays...
Interesting that they are not going for one-piece canopy and is still using a spherical IRST. If they performed further RCS reduction measures this could potentially be the most stealthy fifth gen fighter.
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- Thread starter tphuang
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I think those are weapons bays...
Interesting that they are not going for one-piece canopy and is still using a spherical IRST. If they performed further RCS reduction measures this could potentially be the most stealthy fifth gen fighter.
Since the Mig-21, the USSR and Russia has not introduced another lightweight single engine fighter. The Mig-21 was from an era where it wasn't really a "lightweight" and it filled its role as a capable interceptor with decent range. Again for its era, it had decent range and payload while maintaining its main purpose of getting places quickly.
Anyway it's hard to say what the range would be like for this fighter. It certainly looks larger than the lightweights of today. I would imagine modern Russia will maintain its preference for heavier fighters unless this just offers such appealing cost and production specs.
base on what UAC said, and the state of this aircraft atm, i think it will require way more money than fc-31 to become a real deal...
I guess both're shared with su-57.
Mig-23*.
And there also were Mig-27 and Su-17 families of
exactly, unless WW3 is coming soon, the "frontline" aircraft has no place to exist.
you can't sell an airfield defender to anyone anymore..
They probably share many components with Su-57 like the engine and sensors to keep cost down.
It’s an LGBT plane???
That radome doesn’t seem to have much capacity.
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I would hope not. Not even to close countries you can "trust" not to give details away. These things aren't money makers for China. China rely on them for security and the promise that real money makers continue operating and aren't threatened by angry external forces.
FC-31 is an exportable aircraft. It's export version may feature some J-35/xy since SAC won't be building two very different frames. Minor mods and everything else is either changed or buyer does their own. Difference of making a few dozen units sold is pocket change and will only slow down SAC's production while giving away details on even relatively trivial stuff. Simply unnecessary and there is close to no shown desire to export it now that SAC has got PLANAF (and possibly PLAAF). At first it was just SAC privately funded and appeared in expos etc but now the big fish was caught? Even if it finds customers outside of China, you have to wonder how different the export variant will have to be if PLAAF and PLANAF or even just one of those will be flying J-xy as one of its new frontline fighters. My guess is it'll be missing plenty of important and sensitive gear.
You are very aware there is a truckload more to stealth than shaping and aerodynamic engineering compromising with shaping which I'm sure are skills Sukhoi have in spades.
Similarly, there is much, much more to a fighter or any weapon than a snapshot. Production rates, production quality etc are all factors that may be telling. The more invisible stuff are related to operations. On these we have no idea, the Chinese ones can be the absolute worst and the Russians and Americans the absolute best. We simply don't know
It could potentially be the most stealthy when the final product is delivered. Just very much impossible for us to say. Even eyeballing RCS is pointless. But let's just say it has the inherent properties of featuring excellent VLO against x band RF - smaller size, fewer surfaces.